Validity of the reduced modulus concept to describe indentation loading response for elastoplastic materials with sharp indenters

Abstract

Recent computational parametric studies have developed reverse algorithms to extract material properties of elastoplastic materials using experimental sharp nanoindentation. These methods used reduced modulus in their parameters to include the effect of indenter compliance. To investigate the validity of using reduced modulus, we conducted experimental indentation of a couple of representative cases for elastoplastic metals with a diamond and a sapphire Berkovich tip. Then, we performed a finite element study for sharp indentation of the same material systems. Both computational and experimental results indicate that the use of reduced modulus is invalid to describe indentation loading response for elastoplastic materials in a certain material regime. Our results show that indenter compliance is overestimated by the previous predictions using reduced modulus. This overestimation leads to underestimation of indenter curvature and causes error in extracting material properties by reverse algorithms.